A Red Christmas
by Clodius Pulcher
Summary: A couple of decades on, Pepper goes to Russia in the winter. And is glad she doesn't have to stay.


**A RED CHRISTMAS**

**~o~O~o~**

_Prompted by Gogol, who may know better next time._**  
**

**~o~O~o~**

Christmas in St Petersburg. Snow, seasonal markets and Russian sushi. Sounded perfect on paper, and went on sounding perfect right until Pepper stepped off the plane.

There was snow all right.

And it looked beautiful, oh there was that: the way it glittered on the ground, a carpet of white stretching over the pavements, a foot or more thick and crunching underfoot. She regretted not wearing trainers. She regretted her heels and her sleek black skirt and her fine silk blouse and her elegant coat, and most of all she regretted not wearing thermal underwear. Thermal underwear, unhappily, was not what the successful businesswoman discovering St Petersburg at Christmas wore. Which was stupid of the successful businesswoman, of course, but there was nothing Pepper could do about that.

(She remembered being given her instructions. He'd been quite clear about the successful business woman bit, probably because she'd been looking a lot like Sandra Bullock pre-Miss Congeniality glamour at that point. Pepper had been annoyed by that. It wasn't as if she couldn't be dressy, if she wanted, but there usually wasn't much point in dressing up for work.

Anyway, he'd seemed rather distracted, so in the end she'd put it down to him being a classicist of the old school. He'd been muttering about ducks to feed, people to feed them with, that sort of thing, when she left.)

Her luggage had gone to Hong Kong, naturally. She'd told them before about booking her flights with BA. At least the taxi to the hotel was warm; and as for the hotel itself –

– _well _–

– Pepper could get used to this life, that was for sure. The foyer _gleamed_. Gilt and marble everywhere, and carpets as thick as the snow on the ground. So what if it wasn't exactly tasteful? Taste was for people who were embarrassed by money. Pepper certainly wasn't; she'd never had enough of it, for one thing.

She wound up in the bar. She was pretty sure a successful businesswoman would kick off a holiday with a couple of cocktails. Hell, it could go on expenses, right?

It was a good cocktail. It came in a long glass and it involved lemon juice and ice cubes and sugar syrup and four types of alcohol, not including the vodka. Pepper slouched in a corner and watched the rest of the room. It was the first time she'd been to St Petersburg, or indeed Russia, but as far as bars in expensive hotels frequented by expensive people went, it seemed pretty much par for the course.

There were a lot of glamorous blondes in fur coats about. Most of them seemed to be attached to large gentlemen in very smart suits. Successful businessmen out with their wives, no doubt, thought Pepper, since she was halfway down the cocktail by now and inclined to be charitable. Except for that one, because she'd spent a while with his file last week and while he was both successful and a businessman, the two words could combine only into a terminally deceptive phrase. Oh, and the bald revenant currently entwined with a couple of brunettes young enough to be his granddaughters was a very big man in the Russian Mafia. And over there she could see someone whose CV included a stint at the top of the KGB...

Someone sat down beside her. Pepper glanced up, startled. She recognised the journalist and winced.

"Hi," said 'Red' Zuigiber, smiling her scarlet smile. "Mind if I join you? I haven't seen you since Bangladesh, back when they were rioting in Dhaka. How's things, Ms... Lynch?"

"Scott," said Pepper, stiffly. "_Mrs _Scott."

Red's eyelid dropped into a slow wink. "'_Course _it is," she drawled. "Mrs Scott. Silly ol' me, eh?"

She was wearing furs as fine as any tycoon's armful. Pepper made a mental note for the fifth time to find out how a journalist working for the _National World Weekly_ could afford to dress like that.

"That'll be husband number three, then," added Red, and went on before Pepper could react, "Can I get you a drink?"

Her smile was predatory. Just like a tycoon's armful, thought Pepper, who wasn't feeling charitable any more.

"No," she said, "thanks. I've got one."

Red got up, slinging her slinky laptop bag over her shoulder, and grinned. "Next time, then," she said. "Can't stick around here, much as I'd love to. I've got a flight to catch."

That was a relief. "Oh?"

"Yeah," said Red. She winked again. "Tell you what, why don't we make a date? I'll see you in Kiev."

She left, which would certainly have turned heads if the Mafia boss hadn't chosen that moment to pick a fight with the ex-KGB officer. Pepper sank back into her chair and stared at her glass. It was snowing outside. She could see it through the window, flakes tumbling thick and fast through the yellow light from a nearby street lamp. Distantly, she remembered her heavy coat had gone to Hong Kong with the rest of her luggage. She was very glad, suddenly, that she was only going to be here for a week, and that she'd be flying back to a country where winters were wet and rarely dropped below 0° centigrade. The warm glow of the cocktail didn't seem nearly as comforting any more.

Her instructions came back to her. Go to St Petersburg. Make the drop. Don't get caught. Come home.

Red Zuigiber's grin had somehow superimposed itself on her memory. _I'll see you in Kiev._

Pepper didn't like the sound of that.


End file.
